CLIP setup the Turntable stage at Rice and Spice festival, an event which celebrates cultural differences and brings people together to share their heritage through food, performances, traditional clothing and visual arts.
On Saturday 24th June CLIP collaborated with artist and promoter Ritchie Khan and the Colchester Diverse Communities Network to build a sound system stage shining a spotlight on the exceptional young DJs at this fantastic community led festival.
This project was made possible with support from FSJ Charities.
Over the course of a month prior, our young musicians worked under the tutorage of artist Eli Turay, learning the software Serato and experimenting with performing using hardware controllers. Each week was spent practicing, fine tuning their performance techniques and picking the perfect tunes to complete their set.
Alongside this, our students worked towards a bronze arts award. Researching their favourite artists, planning their performance and reflecting on the process throughout.
A special thank you to Signals, who kindly donated the use of the studio space to host our workshops. Their well equipped Mac studio, surround sound speaker system and large projection wall was the perfect environment for our students to learn the new software and everyone to see tutors screen easily.
Performance Day
Having spent the previous night setting up the stage, our young performers arrived with friends, family and fans in tow. The lineup for the day had our young performers back to back with local talent including DJ Cable, Swift Tee, Johnny Fisher, BAZ and Eli T.
One by one the CLIP performers took to the stage working under their fantastic DJ Name guises and blew the crowd away with their incredible mixing and turntablism skills. Every performer was met with rapturous applause, from friends, family and the general public alike.
The anxiety and fear they spoke of beforehand shifted to glee and elation as they lapped up the applause and positive feedback. One student spoke of how he was incredibly nervous before, but wants to keep performing now because of how good it makes him feel!
Merch Making Workshop
Alongside the performances we had a second tent where anyone could have a go at making their own musical merch! Run by artist Loula Yorke, we saw some incredible t-shirts made using a variety of stencils – including the clip logo and Loula’s own ‘Atari Punk Girls’ design.
Our turntable stage was a huge success, and we received excellent feedback from participants, parents and the festival organisers. We’re already excited for 2024 and can’t wait to return with more exciting performances from the incredible young people we work with.
